Me, Drugs, and Alcohol

For ten years my motto has been “better living through chemistry”. Actually, that should be “living at all through chemistry” as I previously had no life due to the confines of a really severe panic and anxiety disorder that often kept me housebound. Now I’m happily medicated, happier with my recent change and reduction in effective meds, and barely an anxious bone in my body.

I’m well acquainted with my pill bottles. I can recite the labels down to who filled it that month. This month it was Kim. That’s neither here nor there. Point is, they both distinctly say “this drug will make you drowsy. Alcohol will intensify that effect”. Seeing as I haven’t had an alcoholic drink in about 15 years I really didn’t pay much heed to that warning label and kind of forgot about it when I decided to throw caution to the wind, take the stick out of my ass and join Don’s family in a drunken free-for-all on Memorial Day weekend.

Yep. That’s me…the one passed out in the back seat of my car.

Oops…rewind. I took a couple of Mike’s Hard Cranberry Lemonades with me. They taste kind of fruity, the alkie content isn’t terribly high – like 4.5% or something and I can live with it. Let me tell you that I opened it around 2:15. One-third of the way through the bottle the world starts getting a little hazy and everyone around me is just a little funnier. Then Don’s sister sits down with this flourescent green drink with lots of yummy looking ice cubes. I.Must.Try.This. says the fuzzy part of my brain. MMMMMMMMMMM….pineapple. Green pineapple. Look ma, no alcohol!

BZZZZZZT. Wrong! About three kinds of alcohol can cancel each other out and it just tastes green and fruity. His niece makes me my own green fruity pineapple with lots of yummy looking ice cubes. I suck it down like water while I’m eating a cheeseburger dipped in ketchup. No bun. That’s pretty much the last thing I remember.

Until I wake up with drool on my arm, a seatbelt digging into my side, a terrific sharp pain in my right knee and my watch telling me it’s almost 6 p.m. WHAT THE FUCK? Don comes to check on me. Turns out he took pictures while I was in my drunken stupor. I yell at him. He erases them. Evidently everyone has already seen them. I sheepishly round the back porch and there are twice as many people there and half of them are total strangers now and his younger sister grabs me and yells out “Diana’s back!!!!” while everyone cracks up laughing.

Yup. Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave. Now talk amongst yourselves while I bear the humiliation in good humor and remind myself to pay attention to those little blue warning labels. I think Don drank the rest of my six pack.